Left in the lurch

Reynosa, Mexico – The price of his family’s freedom would be the sale of his brother’s car. But even being held for ransom would not be the greatest hurdle to Giovanni Martino’s asylum claim.

Martino was only 17 when he fled Venezuela due to its economic collapse. Poverty was endemic. Food and medicine were in short supply. And there were few opportunities for a young man looking to get an education.

Across the border, in Medellin, Colombia, he would find a wife but no stable employment. And his family soon grew to include two children: one seven years old, the other just a baby.

So he pinned his hopes on coming to the United States. At age 23 and with no legal immigration documents, Martino undertook the perilous trek north across the Darien Gap, an isthmus that connects South and Central America.

His wife and children had the luxury of Colombian passports: They could fly to Mexico City without the need for a visa. But Martino had little choice but to walk and take ground transportation.

The family reunited in the Mexican capital, and by New Year’s Eve, they reached the border between the US and Mexico.

They wanted to apply for asylum at the McAllen-Hidalgo International Bridge in Reynosa, Mexico, but they could not find a way to do so. So they left for Matamoros, another border crossing an hour away.

But moments after their bus left the terminal, armed men forced it to stop. Martino and his entire family were kidnapped.

“They put us in a room where there were more than 50 kidnapped people of different nationalities, including Mexicans too,” Martino said. “There were 14 children. I counted them.”

The armed men — Martino suspects they were members of a criminal group — forced the young father to give up his phone so they could demand money from his contacts for a ransom. They managed to reach Martino’s brother in Dallas.

Martino said his brother was forced to sell his car to pay off his captors. At $1,800 a head, the family was released after six days in captivity.

Finally, they were free to make an asylum appointment on the US Customs and Border Protection app, CBP One. They secured a slot for January 21.

But on January 20, yet another hurdle arose: the inauguration of US President Donald Trump.

Within hours of being sworn in for a second term, Trump abruptly shut down CBP One and cancelled all its appointments, leaving thousands of asylum seekers like Martino stranded and vulnerable along the border.

Some applicants had been waiting for weeks, even months, for their time slots.

“It was a huge blow. After all we’ve been through, all the waiting, all the hope, it’s incredibly disheartening,” Martino said. “But I’m not giving up hope that the case will be reopened, that they will at least appeal on behalf of those with approved appointments.”

Now, asylum seekers say they have been left in a dangerous situation as a result of Trump’s decision: unable to return home but also unable to stay, given the dangers of the border region.

The US government acknowledges that its southwestern border faces threats from organised crime, drug traffickers and corrupt officials.

But while domestic law allows people to seek asylum on US soil if they fear persecution, successive presidents have tightened access at the border.

Under former President Joe Biden, nearly all asylum seekers had to apply for appointments through CBP One.

Under Trump, however, asylum processing at the border has virtually stopped, thanks to the dissolution of CBP One and an executive order “suspending the physical entry of aliens” into the US.

Human rights groups have argued that Trump’s order violates US and international law, both of which protect the right to asylum.

But Trump said his order is slated to remain in effect “until I issue a finding that the invasion at the southern border has ceased”. The Republican leader has repeatedly framed undocumented migration as an “invasion” and immigrants as “criminals”.

Even if the order is ultimately overturned, other policies also threaten to place asylum seekers at risk.

Trump, for example, has announced his intention to reinstate the Migrant Protection Protocols programme, known as the “Remain in Mexico” policy. That would require asylum seekers to stay outside the US while their claims are processed.

At the migration shelters in Reynosa and Matamoros, Trump’s return to office is seen as a turning point.

People repeat over and over sentiments like, "If I had only scheduled my appointment sooner, I would be there already." The what-ifs crease their faces with anguish and self-blame.

Buses and vans from Mexico’s National Institute of Migration used to travel two to three times a week from southern Mexico to the Casa del Migrante, a Catholic migrant shelter in Reynosa that provides basic necessities.

Each group of vehicles brought 35 to 50 people for their CBP One appointments.

Eighteen-year-old Ruth Alvarado and her mother arrived on one of the buses on January 15. Their scheduled appointment was six days later.

Originally from El Salvador, they entered Mexico in June. They too were kidnapped upon arriving in the southern city of Tapachula.

After spending three days trapped in an animal pen, they were released only when Alvarado’s aunt in California paid a ransom of $2,800.

Alvarado expressed frustration that she had survived so much only to see her CBP One appointment cancelled with less than a day’s notice.

“I felt really bad. You have dreams, dreams that you’ve been fighting for a long time. And it’s awful that, one day, it’s all just gone after everything you have been through,” Alvarado said.

Sister Maria Tello Claro, the director of Casa del Migrante, explained that the mood at her shelter has turned to sadness and anguish since Trump’s inauguration.

The shelter, designed to accommodate 170 people, currently houses 190 migrants primarily from Honduras, Venezuela, El Salvador and Haiti.

Tello observed that many of the residents, including Martino and Alvarado, had been held hostage at some point during their journeys to the border.

"Here it is dangerous because they can be kidnapped. In fact, they are being kidnapped,” Tello said.

But Tello explained that the migrants and asylum seekers she knows have few options. “Where are they going to go? Some of them cannot return to their countries.”

She added that the US’s 90-day pause on foreign aid spending has also limited the shelter’s capacity to address the needs of migrants and asylum seekers.

Other nongovernmental organisations offer support to Casa del Migrante, but their budgets have dried up in the wake of the aid freeze. Casa del Migrante has already lost one of its two volunteer counselling psychologists as a result.

Tello explained that she and her colleagues have had several meetings with other shelters to discuss how to provide support, but they are unsure what to do.

“We go day by day,” Tello said.

Johanna Ovando, 31, is among the asylum seekers stranded at the border. She fled El Salvador with her husband, two children and mother.

She feared her country’s gangs would prey on her eldest son now that he has turned 10, a prime age for recruitment.

El Salvador’s government has responded to gang violence by imposing an iron-fisted security crackdown, resulting in widespread human rights abuses. That only heightened the risks of staying.

But now that Ovando and her family are stuck at the US-Mexico border, she wonders if she made the right decision. In Mexico, she said, her family has faced discrimination, abuse and extortion.

“There is sex trafficking, and one walks with the fear of persecution,” Ovando said. Comparing the situation to El Salvador, she added, “It is the same over there, but it is our country.”

Ovando plans to stay one more month at a shelter in Matamoros. If the asylum process does not resume, she and her family will leave.

“We cannot stay here,” Ovando said. “It’s very insecure.”

For Martino, however, returning is not an option. He feels that going back after all he survived would mean defeat.

“Patience runs out, hope ends and many things must be taken into account,” Martino said. “But calmly, with patience and a lot of faith, we put everything in God’s hands.”

But he acknowledged his fate is also in the US president’s hands, and he is hoping for some indication of what his future holds: “Donald Trump also has to give answers.”